A Ballot-Level Study of Intentional and Unintentional Abstention in Presidential Election Voting

一次选举的剩余投票率是指不包含有效选票的选票比例，在当代关于未计票、选民剥夺选举权和选举改革的文献中，剩余投票率被认为是衡量选举管理的晴雨表。尽管如此，剩余投票率的一个局限性是，它们汇总了许多类型的无效选票。选民错误、投票机问题和故意回避都会产生剩余选票，这些剩余选票在影响选举的总体剩余选票率方面在观察上是等价的。这是有问题的，因为研究技术相关的剩余选票的研究人员和那些关注少数选民被剥夺选举权的研究人员更关心无意的剩余选票，而不是有意的剩余选票，即，该项目将剩余投票率分解为无意投票率和有意投票率。这需要生成和编码一组选票图像。与没有总统投票但包括所有其他有争议的竞选中的有效选票的大选选票相比，试图投票给包括总统在内的所有职位的选票。 前一张选票可能包含有意的总统剩余投票，而后者则是无意的剩余投票。区分这些nonvotes，也就是说，区分由选民错误，技术和预防造成的剩余选票需要选票图像。 由于2000年大选后佛罗里达进行了重新计票，佛罗里达州档案馆现在收藏了该州在这次竞选中投下的所有选票。在美国各地，没有可比的投票档案。佛罗里达档案馆的选票由按选区分类的纸张组成，选票没有任何意义上的编码。因此，研究项目的第一步是制作一组有代表性的佛罗里达县的选票的电子图像，然后对图像进行编码。对于每个县，经过如此考虑的图像将由其所有具有无效总统票的选票以及随机选择的具有有效总统票的选票组成。第二步是运用个案控制统计技术，估计有意剩余投票率、无意剩余投票率以及与技术限制相关的剩余投票率，最后将选票图像和相关编码发布在互联网上，以使选举改革、投票违规和选举参与的学者受益。这将产生一个前所未有的资源，对未计数的选票，也将感兴趣的研究人员谁研究票分裂的现象发生时，个人投票给一个党的总统候选人和国会候选人的另一个在同一次选举。选票分割率是不可观察的，只能通过选票图像可靠地估计。选举影响到社会各群体在政府中代表其利益的程度，但剩余投票率高的群体所获得的代表性低于剩余投票率低的群体。这是民权学者的一个担忧，因为有令人信服的证据表明，少数族裔选民相对于白色选民有很高的剩余投票率。深入了解残票的来源，以及残票一般是无意或有意产生的，将有助学者和选举改革人士确保社会上所有团体都能透过选举获得利益。 最后，该项目说明了选票水平分析的重要性，并可能鼓励创建选票档案超越佛罗里达的。这些档案可以大大提高对剩余选票的学术理解，因此该项目表明，使选票可用于研究将如何加强美国选举的合法性。

An election's residual vote rate is the fraction of ballots cast in it that do not contain valid votes, and within contemporary literatures on uncounted votes, voter disfranchisement, and electoral reform residual vote rates are considered the barometer by which election administration is measured. Nonetheless, a limitation of residual vote rates is that they aggregate many types of invalid votes. Voter errors, voting machine problems, and intentional abstention all produce residual votes that are observationally equivalent insofar as affecting an election's overall residual vote rate. This is problematic as researchers studying technology-related residual votes and those focusing on minority voter disfranchisement care more about unintentional residual votes than they do about intentional residual votes, i.e., deliberate abstention.The project disaggregates residual vote rates into, among other rates, unintentional and intentional rates. This requires generating and coding a set of ballot images. Contrast a general election ballot that has no vote for president yet includes valid votes in all other contested races with a ballot that has attempted votes for all offices including president. The former ballot presumably contains an intentional presidential residual vote while the latter, an unintentional residual vote. Distinguishing between these nonvotes-that is, distinguishing between residual votes caused by voter error, technology, and abstention-requires ballot images. On account of the recount that took place in Florida following the 2000 general election, the Florida State Archive now houses all the ballots cast in the state during this contest. Across the United States there are no comparable ballot archives. The ballots in the Florida archive consist of sheets of paper sorted by precinct, and the ballots are not coded in any sense. Thus, the first step of the research project is making electronic images of the ballots from a set of representative Florida counties and then coding the images. For each county so considered images will be made of all its ballots that have invalid presidential votes and also of a randomly selected set of ballots that have valid presidential votes. The second step of the project is applying case control statistical techniques to estimate intentional residual vote rates, unintentional residual votes, and residual vote rates associated with technology limitations.The project concludes by publishing its ballot images and associated codings on an Internet site so as to benefit scholars of election reform, voting irregularities, and electoral participation. This will generate an unprecedented resource on uncounted votes that will also be of interest to researchers who study ticket splitting-a phenomenon that occurs when individuals vote for a presidential candidate of one party and a Congressional candidate of another in the same election. Ticket splitting rates are unobservable and can only be estimated reliably with ballot images. Elections influence the extent to which groups in society have their interests represented in government, yet groups with high residual vote rates receive less representation than groups with low rates. This is a concern for civil rights scholars as there is compelling evidence that minority voters have high residual vote rates relative to white voters. Knowing more about the origins of residual votes and whether they are in general unintentional or intentional will help academics and election reform practitioners ensure that all groups in society are well-served by elections. Finally, the project illustrates the importance of ballot-level analyses and may encourage the creation of ballot archives beyond Florida's. Such archives can vastly improve the scholarly understanding of residual votes, and as such the project shows how making ballots accessible for research will strengthen the legitimacy afforded to American elections.